Check out these Melted Snowman Cookies from Truly Custom Cakery. They are sugar cookies with icing for the snowman’s body and a marshmallow for its head.
Then, you decorate. Look, this one has a snowball:
I have no idea if these taste good, but they look cute. [Neatorama]
I would really like to have one of these Pear Bellinis from Food & Style! It had pear juice, grappa, and champagne in it. Since pears are coming into season, this is a great holiday drink. Or a Friday night drink. I mean, if you happen to have these ingredients around, hey, why not?
Here’s a brilliantly simple idea: Super Mario Bros. Quesadillas from The Insatiable Geek. All you need is the usual quesadilla ingredients and a star-shaped cookie cutter.
Heh. I accidentally typed “Supper Mario Bros. Quesadillas” there.
Marcia Simmons, author of DIY Cocktails and a friend of mine, made her own Irish cream and found that it was better tasting than the major brands like Bailey’s, and cheaper too. As she put it:
DIY Irish cream tastes richer and fresher than the store-bought kind (though it doesn’t last as long or look quite as uniform.) It’s like the difference between a Chips Ahoy cookie and a freshly baked homemade chocolate chip cookie. Your own batch also will cost you at least 5 dollars less than the packaged stuff.
Sounds awesome. And just in time for the holidays, too.
Check out the recipe for DIY Irish cream here.
Yikes, Thanksgiving is less than a week away. I am not cooking this year for the first time in awhile, and that’s kind of nice for a change.
Turns out I’ve written a lot about the holiday in the past, so here’s a Thanksgiving round-up:
* 5 Tips To Save Money On Thanksgiving Dinner
* Thanksgiving Centerpieces
* Thanksgiving Vegetable Sides
* Thanksgiving Sides Round-up
* Cranberry Sorbet
* Pumpkin Ice Cream
* Beer To Have With Thanksgiving
And don’t forget the leftovers:
* Turkey Shepherd’s Pie
* Turkey Loaf Panini
* How To Make Turkey Broth
After completing my homemade ricotta cheese, I stuffed it in some pasta shells and topped it with a fresh pasta sauce. It was great. Here’s the recipe:
Pasta Shells With Ricotta-Cheese Filling
(Makes 16 shells)
Ingredients:
2-3 c ricotta cheese, preferably homemade
2 c good Parmesan cheese
2 eggs
1 Tbs fresh parsley
Salt and pepper to taste
For the Sauce:
2 Tbs olive oil
8-10 tomatoes, chopped
2 garlic cloves, minced
1/2 onion, chopped
1 carrot, peeled
1/2 cup fresh basil, chopped
2 Tbs tomato paste
1 c chicken broth
1 pinch red peppers
Salt and pepper to taste
Directions:
To cook the pasta: fill a pot with salted water. Bring to a boil and add the pasta shells. Cook until done, then drain and set aside for later.
To make the sauce: chop up all the vegetables. When you cut the tomatoes, make sure to retain their juices. For the carrot, I first removed the skin with a vegetable peeler and then sliced the rest of the carrot with the peeler.
Add the garlic and olive oil to a large pan. Heat up until the garlic begins to cook and releases its juices into the oil. Add the onions and cook until soft, stirring often. Add the carrots and the pinch of red pepper flakes. Stir until the carrots are soft.
Carefully add the tomatoes and their juices to the pan. Stir until integrated, then add the tomato paste and broth. Bring to a boil and then lower the heat to medium-high so that the sauce is simmering on the stove. Cook until the moisture reduces by half, about 20 minutes. At the end, add the basil and cook another 3-5 minutes until wilted. Add salt and pepper to taste.
While the pasta sauce is cooking, make the cheese filling: Combine all the filling ingredients except the salt and pepper in a bowl and stir until combined. Taste. Add salt and pepper until delicious.
To assemble the dish: Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Get a 9″X13″ pan and grease or spray with cooking oil so the shells won’t stick.
Pick up a pasta shell. If it is still too hot to handle, gently rinse with cool water. Fill the shell with cheese and place in the pan. Repeat until all the shells are filled.
Spoon the pasta sauce over the shells. Cook in the oven about 35 minutes, or until the sauce is bubbling.
Before serving, let the shells sit about 5 minutes. Carefully spoon each shell onto a plate–you don’t need very many, these things are filling! Top with more Parmesan cheese if desired. Enjoy!
I could not believe how easy it is to make your own ricotta cheese. I’ve been meaning to try it ever since I made cottage cheese awhile back and now I am wondering why I waited so long. This recipe is so easy, it practically makes itself.
And the results are tasty, too. I wouldn’t go so far as to say this cheese beats high-quality ricotta, but it’s definitely better than the stuff you can easily get in the store. This recipe is especially valuable to me because many times an Italian recipe will call for ricotta cheese, but many grocery stores only carry the skim-milk kind, which frankly, just doesn’t cut it.
To make this recipe, the only special thing you need is cheese cloth, an inexpensive item you can get at any grocery store. Otherwise, it uses basic kitchen supplies.
As for the milk and cream, the one thing to avoid is the phrase “ultra-pasteurized,” which means the nice cheese-making bacteria has been cooked out of the milk and won’t yield goods cheese. Also, the nicer (i.e. local and organic) dairy you buy, the better the cheese will taste.
After making the ricotta, I stuffed it in pasta shells and cooked it with sauce made from my homegrown tomatoes. Recipe to follow tomorrow.
How To Make Ricotta Cheese:
(Yields 2-3 cups of cheese)
Ingredients:
Directions:
Pour the salt, cream, and milk into a large pot. Slowly bring up the heat until the mixture is almost boiling, at around 200 degrees. Just before it boils, turn the heat to low and add the vinegar. Stir for 2 minutes and then turn off the heat. You will already start to see the curds of cheese at this point:
Line a mesh strainer with the cheese cloth and place over a bowl to catch the whey. Pour the cheese mixture through the lined strainer and let drain for one hour.
Voila! You have made ricotta. Let cool and cook as normal. Enjoy!
Back To The Lab Again made a Venn Digram Cake.
Half is heaven, i.e. angel food cake; hell, i.e. devil’s food cake; and the middle is purgatory, a combination of the two. Funny and delicious at the same time! [Neatorama]
The other day, I called my mom and asked her about a cookie I remembered eating when I was a kid. It had an oatmeal-cookie-type mixture on the top and bottom and fruit in the middle.
My mom knew exactly what I was talking about. They’re called Matrimonial Cakes. I have no idea why they are called that–Oat Squares or Oat Bars would be better–but apparently Matrimonial Cakes are pretty old. My great grandmother made this recipe.
Now that I’ve made Matrimonial Cakes, I’m glad to know about them. They use ingredients I commonly have in the pantry and are a great way to use up old fruit or, in this case, boysenberry jam. With the oats and fruit, they are slightly healthier than other cookies, although the amount of butter throws that off a bit. In any case, they’re nice with coffee in the morning too.
Matrimonial Cakes
Ingredients:
1 c jam, any kind
Directions:
Preheat the oven to 325 degrees.
In a bowl, mix together all the ingredients except the jam. Make sure the butter is evenly distributed throughout the oat mixture.
In a 9X9 square pan, press half the oat mixture into the bottom. Spread the jam on the top, and then press the rest of the oat mixture on top of that.
Cook for 40 minutes. When completely cool, cut into bars. Enjoy!
I grew pumpkins this year, but to tell the truth, I’m tired of the usual recipes: pumpkin soup, pumpkin pie, pumpkin bread, etc. So here are five new things to do with pumpkin:
Savory Stuffed Pumpkin. I’ve long roasted squash in the oven as a side, but I’ve never done this, which is to fill the center of the pumpkin with bread, cheese, cream, and other ingredients and then cook in the oven for 20 minutes. It looks pretty good!
Pumpkin Pasta looks like it would be versatile and delicious. You could dress it up with a brown butter sauce or an herb pesto. The only thing I would change the recipe is to skip the semolina flour and just use all-purpose flour instead.
My own pumpkin ice cream was a new recipe this year and I was pleased with how it came out. I described it as “creamy, icy pumpkin pie filling,” and darn if that isn’t pretty darn close.
Savory Pumpkin Crackers use both the pumpkin and the pumpkin seeds in one tasty-looking gourmet snack. Topped with a nice spreadable cheese, these look like they would impress your guests.
Finally, if you haven’t tried it, Pumpkin Pie Waffles are a great way to bring some fall flavors into your breakfast. Delicious!
What’s your favorite pumpkin recipe?
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